Plant Growth Comparison: Indoor AP versus Organic soil

[Yabbies4me]

Hi All,

Just thought some may be interested in the comparison in growth rates, size etc between the same plants in an indoor AP system and an outdoor organic veg' garden.

Background for comparison:

My AP system is a small indoor F&D system with a 1000w MH light over the top. It's a little over two months old, the water went in early August, but the first plants and fish went in mid August. It has well and truly cycled and I was harvesting lettuce after 4 weeks. The pH is kept between about 6.8 - 7.2.

My veg' garden had raw chook poop and composted cow manure (at a 1:4 ratio), plus some blood and bone, dug into the top 200mm. After digging in the poop, I covered the GB with lucerne hay and watered it everyday for a month before planting. I do this every spring and the veg garden is 4 years old, so worms etc are definitely well established. pH = ?... I haven't tested for two years... I've learnt to leave well enough alone.

All plants quoted in this comparison came from the same seedling punnets, some were planted in the AP system and the rest planted in the veg garden at the same time.

Celery comparison: In the first photo, the veg garden, the celery in the front of the picture is the biggest in the garden so far, it is 21cm tall and is just starting to form stalks. In the second photo you can the celery in the AP system is much larger and has some well developed stalks, it is 37+cm tall. (AP wins)

Spring onion: The spring onion in the veg garden are about 35 cm, nearly twice the height of those in the AP system (19cm max) and their leaves are also much thicker. (Organic soil wins)

Oakleaf lettuce: The large Oakleaf in the left of the veg garden photo and the large one in the right of the AP sytem photo were planted at the same time, they are comparible in size, but the outdoor organic one is denser, this is probably more to do with light I would imagine. The outdoor ones are good for a number of days in the fridge after harvesting, the indoor AP ones are more delicate and need to be eaten the same day, again probably the light I would imagine. The soil grown ones also have more flavour.

I must say though the AP system is definitely easier on the back.

Draw from this what you will, I just think it's interesting to compare.

Cheers, Yabbies.

[bigdaddy]

Hi yabbies,Thanks for the comparison.

I think an AP system does not do a great deal for the first three months or so,Young immature AP gardens have a typical grow rate like yours,I know mine did,but after 3-6 months things just tend to take off.I would be interested if you could do a couple more comparisons like you have may be one in 3 months and another in six months time,if you want and see if this theory is correct.

My veges are doing fantastic now and taste very good,my strawberry plant is coming back to life in my barra system,it will be interesting to see how they taste this time.

Cheers.

[Yabbies4me]

Hey BD,

my strawberry plant is coming back to life

I'm glad your having success with your strawberries!

I'm having good success with everything but strawberries. I planted three at the beginning, I ripped one out a couple of weeks ago, and I'll probably rip the other two out soon, I think the pH always around 7.0 is not working for them.

My system has completely cycled and I'm getting 0.0 readings for NH3/4, N02 and N03, but my pH keeps creeping up, instead of down, like it's supposed to once cycled.
I let it get to 7.2 then I'll bring it back to 6.7 or 6.8, within two or three days it'll get back up to 7.2, so until (if ever) the pH starts going the other way strawberries are out of the question I think, everything else is doing great.

The strawbs in the backyard are doing fine so it's all good.

Cheers, Yabbies.

[Yabbies4me]

A little bit more comparison, this time with red lettuce.

I know it's not a great photo of them, but if you look at the very top of the outdoor veg garden photo you'll see a few red lettuce, they are very dense and dark red all over.

In the second photo, of indoor AP system red lettuce, you can see it's more open, it's much larger and has no red on the leaves, just a little brown. These plants were planted at the same time from the same punnet, they look like entirely different varieties.

We have eaten both in the last few days and the indoor ones are much tastier than the outdoor lettuce, which are actually slightly bitter, but the reds always tend to be when we've grown them in the veg garden before.

So we've had two entirely different results for two varieties of lettuce, the Oakleaf were tastier and denser from the veg garden, the ones grown indoors in AP under artificial light were much less dense and had no taste to speak of. With the reds, the indoor ones, although not as dense, are much tastier than the veg garden grown ones, which are smaller, denser and slightly bitter...

You guess is as good as mine?

Cheers, Yabbies.

[Yabbies4me]

Might help if I actually included the photo's

[Wendy in BC]

I don't know what's up with my lettuce, I expected it to do the best. Tomatos, beans and green pepper are flowering, but the lettuce looks patheticly small, and had germinated over a month ago, although it looks like it's only a couple of weeks old

[Yabbies4me]

Hi Wendy,

What's your water temp?... When I first started my system nearly three months ago it was the back end of winter over here and my water temp for the first couple of weeks was about 16-17 deg' and the lettuce were slow. I put a heater in the FT set to 22 deg' to try and get the system cycling quicker and the lettuce took off within a day or two.

Some varieties don't do so well either, I don't know what varieties you get over there, but IMO Oakleaf are far and away the best option, over here at least. Corals and Frismos don't do so good.

And if you haven't been giving them any, teaspoon or two of Seasol will pep them up.



Cheers, Yabbies.

[Wendy in BC]

Thanks yabbies, the water temp was very cool (12C) until I added the heater a week ago, it's now at least 27C, I have noticed the chard taking off over the last week. I have a mixed variety of lettuce, all doing about the same. Yesterday I started foliar feeding with a liquid kelp .1/.1/.5, diluted as recommended . Can I spray the leaves everyday?

[Murray]

Hi Wendy, Lettuce don't do well at root zone temp above 22 deg C

[Wendy in BC]

Thanks for that Murray, It was doing lousy at the lower temps as well. I guess I'll have to forgo good lettuce for the sake of the fish.